174: FICHTE the absolute, and by the ancient philosophers the substance. Fichte's philosophy was in- tended to amplify that of Kant. Kant, in in- vestigating the theory of human cognition, had arrived at the conclusion that the properties of external objects, by which they are discerned and known, are not realities, transferred from without into the human mind, but mere forms of conception innate in the mind. Hence he argued that objects per se, or such as they really are, independent of human cognition, are utterly unknown to man. So far as man is concerned, they are only phenomena ; that is to say, for man they exist only as they appear to the mind according to its forms of conception (categories), while as noumena, or such as they are per se, they are unknown and inconceivable. What Fichte attempts to prove is simply this : that between objects as they ap- pear to human conception and as they actually are there is no real difference, since the forms of human cognition are identical with the ac- tion of the absolute intellect ; that objects are the limit set by the absolute within itself in order to arrive at perfect self-consciousness; that the absolute (the IcTi) is at the same time subject and object, the ideal and the real. Ke- duced to plainer language, all this would mean that God (the absolute subject, the great active and creative "I") and nature (the "not I," the aggregate of objects) are united in a similar manner as soul and body ; that the absolute intellect pervades all and everything, and that the human mind is an integral part of the absolute intellect. But, clothed in the most singular and obscure formulas, the theory of Fichte was understood by many to mean that all reality existed only in the imagination of man, and was in fact merely an outward reflec- tion or manifestation of the workings of the hu- man mind. Such was not his idea, and the term "idealist," when applied to Fichte, has a different meaning from that in which it is ap- plied to Berkeley. That the ultimate conse- quences of Fichte's system would have led him into a sort of pantheistical mysticism is apparent from his later writings, in which the U I" is much more clearly than in his earlier works set forth as God, and all individual minds only as reflections of the absolute. Applying his metaphysical theories to ethics, Fichte concludes that morality consists in the har- mony of man's thoughts (conscience) and ac- tions. Entire freedom of action and self-de- termination is, according to Fichte, not merely the preliminary condition of morality, but morality itself. Hence law should be nothing more than a determination of the boundaries within which the free action of the individual must be confined, so as to concede the same freedom to others. Law has no meaning or existence without society. The object of so- ciety is the realization of the supreme law as conceived by human reason. The most perfect state of human society would be the true king- dom of heaven, since the absolute or God is FICHTELGEBIRGE revealed in the rational development of man- kind. It is easily seen how these ethical doc- trines of Fichte appeared in practice. Main- taining that self-reliance and self-determina- tion were the only guarantees of true morality, and contending against the assumption of the divine right of political institutions, he fur- nished a philosophical basis to the liberal politi- cal parties who opposed the sanctity of popu- lar rights to the assumed divine right of mon- archs. In order to insure to the people the greatest possible amount of rational well be- ing, Fichte taught that the introduction of the most universal popular education was one of the principal duties of the state. In regard to this subject his urgent appeals to the Ger- man governments were highly successful. The identity of the subject and object, or of the ideal and real, as taught by Fichte, became the basis as well of Schelling's nature -philosophy as of Hegel's philosophical system, the former of which attempts a logical construction of the universe from the standpoint of the object (na- ture), while the other attempts the same from the point of view of the subject (the human mind). The Grundzuge des gegenwdrtigen Zeitalters ("Characteristics of the Present Age"), Wesen des Gelehrten ("Nature of the Scholar"), Bestimmung des Menschen ("Vo- cation of Man"), Bestimmung des Gelehrten ("Vocation of the Scholar"), and some others of Fichte's works, have been translated into English by William Smith (with a memoir, London, 1845-'8). Other translations from Fichte, by A. E. Kroeger, are, "New Exposi- tion of the Science of Knowledge " (St. Louis, 1869), and " The Science of Knowledge " (Phil- adelphia, 1870). II. Immannel Hermann, son of the preceding, born at Jena in 1797. From 1822 to 1842 he filled professorships at Saar- briick, Diisseldorf, and Bonn, and since 1842 has been professor of philosophy at the uni- versity of Tubingen. He has published many philosophical works, mostly following the theo- ries of his father, though he claims to have es- tablished a system of his own, which, in con- tradistinction to the Hegelian pantheism, be calls concrete theism. Among his works are : Satze zur VorscJiule der Theologie (1826) ; Die Ontologie (1836) ; Die speculative Theologie (1846-'7); System der Eihik (1850-'53) ; An- tJiropologie (1856); and PsycTiologie als Lehre vom bewussten Geiste des Menschen (1864 et seq.~). He has also published the literary cor- respondence of his father, with a biography (1830). He founded at Bonn the Zeitschrift fur Philosophic und speculative Theologie, which he conducted from 1837 to 1848, and which has been continued by Ulrici and Wirth. FICHTELGEBIRGE (Pine mountains), a chain of mountains in Bavaria, province of Upper Franconia, between the Bohemian Forest and the Franconian Jura, covered with forests of firs and pines. By reason of its position in the centre of Germany this chain is regarded as the nucleus of all the Germanic mountains,
